It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas!

Every year, I so look forward to having all of our Christmas decorations up (notice, I didn't say that I looked forward to actually doing it, but I do love it when it is all up and looking beautiful!) So this weekend, we worked hard to get everything all festive at the Hanks house and the girls loved to help!

Jillian, of course, loves the tree! She army-crawled herself right over to snatch this ornament, pull at some lights, and is now loving trying to sneak away with the smaller presents and eat them up

After we got most of the decorations up, we headed out to wait for the annual Pantego Candy Train, which includes a visit from Santa on the Fire Truck!

Santa definitely did not disappoint us - he came bearing stockings full of candy and Meredith was so excited to see him - which was a big change from last year!
The Candy Train ends at our park, where you can visit Santa and watch the Christmas tree lighting. We headed straight to the Santa sleigh to check out the big guy again. Meredith, was so cool about it, you wouldn't know it was the same kid from last year. And Jillian didn't seem to think anything was out of the normal. In fact, she was so enthralled by the elves off to the side of Santa, I couldn't get her to pose just the way I wanted.

The kids actually make the tree light up by "Pulling the Rope." This was s huge highlight for Meredith last year, she loved telling everyone that she lit up the tree - and this year is starting off just the same.
Meredith loved the carols they played at the park, here she is doing a fully-choreographed dance to "Up on the Housetop" Not sure where she learned it but it was pretty good!
We also waited in the longest line ever to get a balloon puppy - green, of course!
The girls and our new puppy friend

The next day, we finished up Christmas decorating with Meredith's tree in her room. She loved putting all of the ornaments on and it was so much fun!